"The Big One"

Rakesh Bhandari bhandari at phoenix.Princeton.EDU
Mon May 18 08:56:47 PDT 1998



>processing zone under the whip of foreign capital. The LBO correspondent
>says this is woefully exaggerated; in fact, there's little foreign capital
>in VN, and the government is begging for more.

"The Vietmamese quickly discovered that foreign businesses frequently utilize old technology, often capitalized at much greater than its real value, and many are ruthless exploiters of labor out to enrich themselves quickly. Six export processing zones were intitiated with great fanfare, despite the fact that similar zones elsewhere, in Asia have generally not been sucessful, and granted special tax and other concesions; they were immediate failures and several are on the verge of dissolution. By 1996, foreign invesmtne had created employment for only 90,000 peop;e, about 2 percent of the total working non-agricultural labor force." Gabriel Kolko, Vietnam: Anatomy of Peace, p. 51.


>From other accounts I have read, FDI (such as it is) seems concentrated in
clear cutting Vietnamese and Cambodian forests.

Best, Rakesh



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